


Romancing your Lady Wife

by DK65



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7177889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DK65/pseuds/DK65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Sansa decides that her father isn't romantic enough, and sets about trying to fix this.<br/>These characters belong to GRRM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romancing your Lady Wife

There were times when Sansa was exasperated by her parents. There was something so ordinary and everyday about them, which was so very different from her aunt Lyanna and uncle Rhaegar. She’d heard the story; how her aunt was at a football game where teams from the Seven Kingdoms were playing off against each other to win a trophy. Some fans from another team were harassing a fan of the Winterfell Wolves, the team from the North. Lyanna had charged in with a wooden baton, and smacked the bullies. And she’d spoken to the team managers about the fans’ misbehaviour, and asked them to take care of the matter. Uncle Rhaegar, who was already married, the father of two children and the finest footballer of the year playing for the King’s Landing Dragons, according to the sports journalists, heard about it and began courting her. He not only managed to persuade her to break her engagement to father’s best friend Robert, who went off to play football in Essos (and made love to all the women there, to hear him tell of it), but also divorced his Dornish wife, Elia. Of course, this meant that Uncle Rhaegar and Aunt Lyanna were on nobody’s nameday or Sevenmas lists for years to come, and the shame of it drove his father insane and his mother to death in childbirth, but think of the stories her cousin Jon would have to tell, if he chose to do so when he was a man grown. 

 

However, Jon, like her father, was not much of a talker. He’d come to live with them when he was four or five; his parents had died in a driving accident, and Father was the only member of her family still talking to Aunt Lyanna when she phoned on his nameday and those of his children. By then, he was already married to mother, who used to be engaged to Uncle Brandon, who ran off with Aunt Barbrey immediately after the football match at Harrenhal. They were still married and raising horses on her father’s estate, while father managed the experimental farm Grandfather Rickard had set up on Winterfell. 

 

When she asked her mother how she and father had got married, after Uncle Brandon ran off with Aunt Barbrey, mother had little to say about it. She would smile slightly and ask if Sansa had brushed her teeth; whether she needed to have her hair brushed; finished her sums for school the next day, or something else so ordinary and irritating that Sansa wanted to scream. She loved her parents, she truly did; she thought it was very romantic that mother had chosen to marry her quiet, steady father and not noisy Uncle Brandon, who rode a horse as if he was leading a cavalry charge and could be heard yelling from the Wall to Dorne. She did not think Uncle Brandon would have suited mother at all, and told her so, which led mother to look at her with twinkling eyes and a smile on her lips. However, she felt her father needed to be more demonstrative. She could imagine Uncle Brandon running off with Aunt Barbrey; she’d seen how he looked at the young ladies he talked to. But she could not imagine her father sweeping her mother off her feet and healing her broken heart, the way Aunt Lysa said it had been.

 

Sansa decided that the problem did not lie with mother; she could see how much mother loved father every time she looked at him. No; the problem lay with father, who smiled so seldom and looked so solemn. He had to do something romantic—he just had to; they had been married almost fifteen years and their wedding anniversary was coming up. Of course, all the family and friends would be invited, from Uncle Benjen on the Wall to Uncle Robert in Essos, and they would all come very joyfully to Winterfell. There would be a big dinner and lots of dancing—they would get a band from White Harbour and the children would be allowed a small glass of champagne each in honour of the occasion. Mother would spend days upon days fussing over the menu and the guest rooms and the decorations with Gage and Poole and the others; but father must do his bit too, Sansa decided firmly. He could not sit still and quiet—he should serenade mother or get her flowers (blue roses to match her blue eyes) or dance with no one but her all evening—he should do something the hero of a romance would do to show how much he loved his wife. She decided she must speak to her father if she wanted anything done in the matter.

 

She went to see him the next morning, immediately after breakfast; she had no school that day. She trotted at his heels as he walked into his office—she knew he would spend the day working on his letters, which he would send on Monday morning, when Jory Cassel came to work. As he sat down and switched on his computer, he turned around to look at her and he smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. She sat very primly on a chair opposite him; she did not slouch or slump; her hands were clasped in her lap and her heels were on the floor.

 

“What can I do for you, Sansa?” he asked gently.

 

“Father,” she began, “what do you plan to do for mother to celebrate your wedding anniversary?”

 

He sighed. “Well, you know we have a big celebration? All our friends and family are invited. Your grandfather Hoster will not be able to make it, nor your Uncle Edmure—grandpa is ill and your uncle must care for him. But Aunt Lysa and Jon Arryn will be here; so will everyone else...”

 

“Father,” she spoke patiently, “I know about the celebration. Isn’t there something special you and mother plan to do together to celebrate the occasion? You could dance with her all evening, you know—just to make it special...” 

 

“And offend your Aunt Barbrey, not to speak of her sister Bethany, and Maege Mormont and the Manderley women and ...”

 

“You could serenade mother at her window...”

 

“Sansa, my dear, you have no idea what you’re talking about—my skills as a musician are non-existent. I remember, at the Eyrie, when we were asked to sing in the choir at the sept, I always sang out of tune. Or so the septon said. He refused to allow me to sing at all. Just ask Jon Arryn when he comes—he’ll tell you all about it. And as for my playing an instrument...no, no, no.”

 

“You could get her flowers—blue roses to match her eyes. Don’t send a card with them; let her think they came from a secret admirer...”

 

“My dear girl, Winterfell is the only place in Westeros where blue roses are grown. These are the rarest of blooms. If I presented your mother with blue roses, she would know they came from me immediately. She is no fool.”

 

Sansa sighed defeated. “Well, I’m all out of ideas. But you must do something romantic to mark the occasion. You spend all day at work on the farm and mother spends all day running the house and watching over us. If I were old enough, I’d tell you to take mother on a cruise around the world and Robb and Jon and I would look after the little ones, but I’m not. You must think of something she would really enjoy and spend some time with her. That’s all I wanted to say, Papa. Have a good day.” She got up, walked up to his chair and kissed his cheek before she left the room. He leant back, a big grin on his face and a twinkle in his usually cold grey eyes.

That night, he waited up for Catelyn in bed. Usually, he fell asleep as soon as he laid his head on the pillow, but not tonight—he had to speak to Catelyn, so he sat up with the bedside light on. He wondered if she thought as Sansa did—that they did not do anything romantic; anything for themselves alone. He had to agree with his daughter—he and Catelyn had devoted themselves to running Winterfell and raising a family. Perhaps he’d taken out time some eight, no nine, years ago, when Robert had signed a contract with the Kings Landing Dragons to play the Krakens of Pyke, the Iron Islands team, for the Westeros Football Trophy. Of course the Dragons won handsomely! Tywin Lannister had negotiated the contract; his daughter Cersei acted as Robert’s manager, although the two of them hated each other. Her twin, Jaime, also played for the Dragons—he’d been signed and immediately benched by Aerys Targaryen, Rhaegar’s father and the owner of the team, which led to Tywin’s resignation from the post of manager. But Catelyn had seldom left Winterfell, except for brief visits to her father and brother, some eight or nine years ago. He must ask her, he thought, what she would really like to do, just the two of them, for their anniversary.

She walked in just then, carefully pulling out the pins from her lovely auburn hair, which she’d pinned into a knot at the back of her head. She strode up to her vanity and carefully laid the pins down, picked up a brush and began briskly brushing her hair. She looked around the room and her eyes widened in surprise. Ned was sitting up in bed, with the bedside light on. He wasn’t reading or doing anything else; he was just looking at her. She smiled at him, somewhat bemused, and sat down on the bed, giving him an enquiring look, as if to ask, “What’s on your mind, love?”

He gave her one of his grave glances, as if to say, “I have something important to say to you,” and immediately began. “I had a chat with Sansa this morning, immediately after breakfast.”

That got her attention at once. Sansa usually spoke to her mother if she had anything on her mind; she seldom talked to Ned, because, as she told Catelyn, “Father’s so busy with the farm and everything... I’m glad I can tell you things, mother.”

“Why? Is there a problem? Are the boys teasing her too much or is Arya getting on her nerves again?”

“No, nothing of the sort. She wanted to know what I planned to do to mark our wedding anniversary. I reminded her of the big dinner we’re having, with the dancing afterwards. But she thought I should do something special to mark the day—dance with you throughout the evening; serenade you at your window; bring you blue roses...”

He watched as Catelyn’s eyes began to twinkle and her mouth, pursed in worry, broadened into a smile and then a laugh. “Just what an eleven-year-old girl would think of as romantic. Listen, Ned—I would love going out dancing with you, like we used to do at the Last Hearth and the Merman’s Rest when we first married. That was lovely. And we should do that—in fact, we should do that at least once a month. But darling, you did explain that you cannot sing or play, and as for the roses, of course I’d know it was you.”

He smiled, “She even said she wished she was older so that she and Robb and Jon could take care of the younger ones and send us off on a cruise. She does have a kind and gentle heart, Cat... Which is why I thought I should ask you what you would like to do. What would you consider romantic?”

“I told you, didn’t I? Going out dancing with you. No, it would not be courteous of you to dance only with me on our wedding anniversary. But you can do that at a nightclub, as we used to do once upon a time. However, what I have to ask you next has little to do with romance.” She fell silent then, fiddling with her hands in her lap and biting her lip.

“What is it, love? What would you have me do?”

She spoke in a rush. “Lysa called, just now. She and Jon Arryn decided to stop at Riverrun—they are driving down from the Eyrie, you recall? Well, she saw father, and she does not think he will last long. He was asking after us and the children. I was wondering, Ned—I was wondering if you and I could go to Riverrun to see him with the children. Can you stay away from Winterfell for a few days?”

“Of course, I can, sweetheart—the harvest gets over in a day or so. We can leave soon after the party—Brandon and Robert will keep each other entertained, and I think Barbrey will be able to keep both of them in line. We can each have a suitcase packed and ready. Only—what about Jon? You know how Brandon is about him?”

“What about Jon? He’s coming with us, of course. He needs to see more of the world than the North, Ned. He’ll enjoy talking to Uncle Brynden—he’s travelling with Lysa and Jon Arryn. She’s full of her job as the Matron at the Eyrie—she seems to get on well with the boys, even the ones who have a crush on her.”

Good for her, Ned thought, recalling his sister-in-law. She’d finally got over her schoolgirl crush on a boy who used to be in love with her older sister. He reached out his arms for his wife, drew her close to him and gave her a kiss on the lips, before he lay down in bed and went to sleep.


End file.
